


The Nigerian Job

by Random_Nerd3



Series: All Things JatP By Random_Nerd3 [50]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV), Leverage
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Thieves, Bisexual Flynn (Julie and The Phantoms), Bisexual Julie Molina, Bisexual Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Crack, Crossover, Dysfunctional Family, Episode: s01e01 The Nigerian Job, Everyone Is Alive, Found Family, Gay Alex (Julie and The Phantoms), Gen, Grifter Julie Molina, Hacker Reggie, Hitter Bobby, Hurt/Comfort, I Die Eating Hot Dogs, Leverage AU, Mastermind Luke Patterson, My Brain Said What If? And My Hyperfixations Said B E T, No Beta, No Sex, No Smut, Pansexual Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Sarcasm, Sort Of, Tags to be added, Team as Family, Theif Alex, Trust Issues, soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27702203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_Nerd3/pseuds/Random_Nerd3
Summary: When life hits Luke with an all time low he has no choice but to take up the job from a desperate man offering a large cash payout if the job's done right.So what if he had to put his morals aside and work alongside the world renound thieves: Reginald Hardison, Alex Parker, and Bobby Spencer?Who knows? Maybe if he plays this side of the game he'll end up running into the mysterious grifter Julie Molina again.
Relationships: Alex & Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Flynn & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Julia Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie
Series: All Things JatP By Random_Nerd3 [50]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1939114
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	The Nigerian Job

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> Welcome all to the Leverage AU that wouldn't stop nagging at the back of my head since my first JatP watch. Feel free to request episodes for me to write if you want to see like, a specific character arc or smthn. If you haven't seen Leverage yet I highly recommend it! It's on Amazon Prime, IMDB TV, and a lot of other free tv service apps.
> 
> I feel like this chapter is really rough, but it's gotta kick off from somewhere, right?
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> ~R

Luke sighed as he nursed the glass of whiskey in front of him on the bar counter. He hadn’t always had to drink alone. He could remember fleeting memories of blurred faces, his friends from before. Sunset Curve before they disbanded when they all turned sixteen and Luke’s dad died of cancer. He didn’t find out until later, but the insurance company could’ve paid for a promising experimental surgery that would’ve saved his dad’s life… He quit the band, he quit his music, and focused all of his energy in becoming one of the best damn insurance agents ever; destroying the company on the inside. “Another drink Mr. Patterson?” Steve, the bartender asked, swishing around a new bottle of liquor. The offer was tempting but Luke knew if he started binging he wouldn’t stop until long after midnight.

“No thanks, Steve. My friends call me Luke, Mr. Patterson was my father,” Luke said, pulling a twenty out of his wallet to pay off his tab.

“Luke! I’m so glad I caught you,” a man said, sliding into the seat next to him. Luke looked the man up and down, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. He looked disheveled, holding a briefcase and had beady little eyes.

“Like I said,” Luke said, nodding at Steve to pour the extra glass of whiskey. “My  _ friends _ call me Luke. I don’t know who the hell you are.” He took a sip of his glass, wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand. 

“Uh right, but I know who  _ you _ are,” the man proclaimed, pulling out a few case files with papers Luke recognised from some of his best cases. “Luke Patterson right? Ex-insurance investigator? I’ve read all about you. I know you’ve saved your insurance company over twenty million dollars, that you helped them out with that identity fraud thing…” He trailed off, shifting his eyes. “I just know that when you needed  _ them… _ Mr. Patterson, what happened to your family is the kind of -”

“ - and now we’ve reached the part of the conversation where I punch you in the neck nine or ten times,” Luke said, cutting into whatever pitch this guy was selling.

“I just wanted to offer you a job,” the man said, looking helpless. Luke sighed, gulped down the rest of his whiskey then asked,

“What do you got?” Luke watched as the man ruffled through the briefcase again and pulled out a couple of files, manila folders, stacked with papers.

“My name’s Victor Dubenich uh… what do you know about airplane designs?” Dubenich asked, ruffling through his files. Luke scoffed and rolled his eyes.

“Yeah I mean, get me a piece of paper, a pencil, one of those little rulers. We can see what I can come up with,” Luke said, nodding at Steve to pour him another drink. Steve obliged, sliding the rest of Luke’s tab across the counter.

“Mr. Patterson, Luke, if I may, I can’t - I have a shareholders meeting coming up and if I have nothing to show for it then I am  _ screwed _ .” Dubenich said, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. Luke caught the some of the names on the case files and realized what kind of job Dubenich was hiring him for.

“You want me to steal you airplane plans?” Luke asked, nodding at the files bareing the names of some of the best thieves in the world. Dubenich shook his head, his fingers twitching in his lap.

“No, I already drew up the designs Mr. Patterson. I don’t want you to steal them from me, I want you… to steal them  _ back _ .” Dubenich said, finally sliding over the case files so Luke could skim through them. He furrowed his eyebrows as the all-too familiar names were repeated over and over again. Luke shook his head, reading through the Pearson file Dubenich gave him.

“Are you sure Pearson’s the one who stole your designs?” Luke asked, a nagging sense of suspicion poking at the back of his head. “Cause I mean, there’s easier ways to get them back. Stealing them… especially with the people  _ you _ have in these files? It’s not always a sure fire thing.” Dubenich nodded, pointing out a few surveillance photos of Pearson himself.

“Luke, the shareholders meeting this weekend; it’s important. The most  _ important _ meeting ever so far. I’ve already spent over one-hundred million dollars in research and development. I go into the meeting with nothing to show for it? I am  _ dead, _ ” Dubenich said, making a beheading motion with his hand. “You hear me Mr. Patterson? I am a dead man walking.” Luke sighed and shifted in his seat, still uneasy about the whole ‘stealing’ aspect of the job. “Look,” Dubenich said, sliding over a new stack of files. “Look at the people I’ve already hired.” Luke looked down at the file and raised an eyebrow, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the thieves Dubenich got into contact with.

“I mean, I’ve chased all of them one time or another,” Luke admitted, flicking through some of the more up-to-date papers on the thieves. “Alex? You have Alex?” Luke asked, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.

“Is there anyone better?” Dubenich asked, his answer making Luke scoff.

“No… but Alex is  _ insane _ . I mean, all of these people are, but he’s probably the most certifiably insane,” Luke said, leaning back in his wooden chair. 

“Which is why I need you,” Dubenich pointed out, like the answer was obvious. Luke furrowed his eyebrows together, still unable to understand the point of the job.

“I am not a thief,” Luke said pointedly, making sure that much was at least clear. He spent the past ten years of his life chasing thieves, he’d never stoop as low as they do. Dubenich shook his head and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table.

“I don’t need you to be a thief,” Dubeich said, “I just need one honest man to watch them.” Luke leaned forward, matching Dubenich’s stance, but instead of agreeing he shook his head.

“It’s not going to work. I mean these - these people who you hired. They’ve all got the same rep. They work alone, that’s how it’s always been. There’s never been any exceptions to that rule, no one even knows what Parker’s real first name is,” Luke said, trying to remember a time he caught Reginald Hardison, Parker, or Bobby Spencer running a team up job.

“For three hundred thousand dollars they will,” Dubenich said, pulling out his last selling point. “And for you? For leading it? It’s double that.” Luke let out a low whistle, weighing the pros and cons of teaming up with the world’s best thieves in his head.  _ Man _ did that make the offer more tempting. After being out of a job for six months Luke really needed the cash. “Look at me,” Dubenich said, gesturing to his disheveled appearance. “I mean, come on man I’m desperate here. And - and the payment? That’s  _ just  _ the salary, Pearson is insured by IYS, your old bosses. They’d lose fifty million dollars if you get the thieves to pull this off Mr. Patterson.” Dubenich said, something shifting in his eyes. “Mr. Patterson, how much do you want to screw over the company that let your father die?” Luke curled his hand into a fist, his fingernails biting into the palm of his hand.

* * *

“Okay,” Luke said as he sat up his makeshift home base in the building next to the one they were robbing. “Clear the coms, guys check in.” Reginald - Reggie to his friends apparently - dug around in the toolbox before pulling out the radio units Dubenich bought for them. Disbelief morphed into insult as Reggie shook his head, throwing the entire box of coms into the trash.

“Oh no,  _ hell no _ , this equipment is straight out of the nineties. Dude, you can’t be serious!” Reggie exclaimed, sounding seriously offended at the lack of high tech equipment he had available. “I got something way nicer,” Reggie promised, turning to open a new briefcase to reveal - well - through the security feed all Luke could see was a whole lot of nothing.

“Alright but no surprises Reggie, we got a timetable to keep,” Luke said, trying to reign in the situation before it got out of hand. He didn’t have to see Reggie to know he was rolling his eyes.

“I’ve been doing this since high school,” Reggie said, mimicking a Boy Scout using the wrong hand, “Captain Discipline man.” Luke rolled his eyes at the obvious lie, but let it slide. They were here to do a job, he’d only have to deal with the thieves for one night. Reggie grabbed something out of the box and handed it to Bobby, letting him attach it to his face. “This right here? It’s an earpiece mic so small it works off the vibrations of your jaw, Luke I left one at hq so you should be able to listen into the job while we work it.” Luke noticed a smaller looking black box resting on the table and couldn’t help but wonder how the hell he missed it before.

“You’re not as useless as you look,” Bobby said as he tested out the new coms. Luke sighed, he should’ve figured working with thieves was going to be like working with literal children.

“I don’t even know what it is that you do,” Reggie retorted, turning to hand one of the coms to Alex.

“Can I have one?” Alex asked, a wide smile on his face. He was hanging upside down from his rig by his knees, swinging over the edge of the roof of the building.

“You can have the whole box,” Reggie said, offering it to him. Luke let out a sigh at the hacker’s horrible attempt at flirting. It seemed to go straight over Alex’s head though, so Luke didn’t worry too much about it.

“Cool!” Alex exclaimed when he adjusted to the earpiece. With his new com intact Alex went back to adjusting his rig for the heist. 

“What are you going to do when he finds out you live with your mom?” Luke heard Bobby ask Reggie.

“Age of the geek baby,” Reggie said back, through the security feed Luke could see a wide smile stretch across his face. “We run the world.”

“Uh huh, yeah,” Bobby said, finally getting into position so they could start the actual heist. “Keep telling yourself that buddy, one day it might be true.” Luke cleared his throat and scanned the security feeds one last time before making sure they were in the clear.

“Last time I used this rig?” Alex said out loud as he worked on the final knots. “Pairs, 2003 ahh the memories I share with the City of Love.” Luke let a slight frown curve at the corners of his lips. Crossing his arms he asked,

“You mean The Caravaggio? You’re the one who stole that?” He asked, frustration seeping into his voice. He spent half the year chasing the thief who stole the artwork; IYS was hired by a third party to try to track down the culprit.

“Is that thing safe?” Bobby asked, poking at the rig with his toe like it was going to bite him. Luke almost wanted to laugh, Bobby Spencer, the hitter wanted in almost every single country, afraid of a rig built by a twenty year old thief who weighed twenty pounds.

“Yeah, man it’s just you know,” Reggie said through the comms, “if you experience nausea, stroke, strokiness…” Reggie trailed off, hooking himself into the harness.

“You’re precisely why I work alone,” Bobby said, obviously still on the fence about the whole team up thing.  _ Well, _ Luke thought as he looked out the window so he could see the Pearson building in person.  _ Too late to turn back now Spencer _ .

“Guys listen up. We go on my count, not a second sooner than that. Alex, no freelancing got it?” Luke asked as a new wave of chatter washed through the comms.

“Awe,” Reggie said, nudging Bobby with his elbow. “Poor guy doesn’t want to be our friend.”

“On the count,” Luke said, interrupting whatever retort Bobby had planned. “One, two, -”

“ - yeah man he’s gone,” Bobby said. Luke assumed he meant Alex so he used binoculars to try to see the side of the building, hoping to catch the thief in the act. “That’s twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag,” Bobby said, and Luke couldn’t help but agree. He followed Alex dropping until he reached the right floor, dangling upside down just barely touching the windows.

“Luke the vibration detectors are on,” Alex said, assessing his situation. Luke scratched the back of his head.

“No cutting Alex, use the binary laser. Be careful,” Luke warned as Alex started to cut through the glass. With Alex occupied Luke turned his attention to the screen to make sure Bobby and Reggie got in through their entrance point alright, dropping in through the elevator shaft.

“Boys are on their way,” Alex said, letting Luke know he patched into the elevator controls. Something in the security feed caught Luke’s eye and he frowned slightly, trying to pick out what was about to go wrong.

“What about security, do you see them?” Luke asked, hoping Alex thought ahead and had already diverted the cameras. 

“They don’t see a thing,” Alex responded, Luke could hear the smile in his voice. Luke anxiously tapped his fingers against his bicep as he started to pace around his office room.

“Alright guys,” Luke said, calming his nerves. “It’s showtime, we can’t screw this up.” Everything went smoothly for all of five minutes before Luke realized some of the security guards were missing from the office. “Uh are we getting any chatter on their frequencies?” Luke asked, running a hand through his hair.” If he ends up getting these thieves caught no one would be able to find where Bobby buried his body. 

“Nothing,” Alex’s response came through crystal clear. Luke made a mental note to somehow thank Reggie for the radio switch later. “Why?” Alex asked, a mix of curiosity and worry in his voice. Luke nodded at the screens in front of him even though he knew Alex couldn’t see them.

“Because a few of the guards have left their posts,” Luke said, watching the security guards turn the corner. They were getting an uncomfortable amount closer to Reggie and Bobby.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Alex said, cutting back in. “Why would they - I mean - why would they make their rounds early?” One of the guards on the screen shifted and Luke saw a layout of basketball rosters on his computer.

“Problem?” Bobby asked, sounding concerned. Luke hesitated then said,

“Uh maybe… check the cameras?” He asked, waiting for Alex to see what was happening.

“It’s because of the playoffs,” Luke said, voicing his realization. “They’re running rounds early so they can watch the playoffs live. Alright, where are they?” He asked, switching his blueprints so he can keep up with their progress.

“At the stairwell,” Alex said, his voice filling with more anxiety by the second. “Bobby, Reggie… guys?” Alex’s voice asked, sounding worried. “They found something that tipped them off! They’re on their way to the server room!” Luke muttered an impressive strand of cuss words under his breath then flipped over a page of blueprints.

“Okay here’s what’s going to happen,” Luke said, hoping Bobby could fight off six guys at once. “We gotta squelch them, then Bobby you’re going to clear the zone…” He hesitated, then decided to say fuck it and finish out his half-baked plan. “And you’re going to use Reginald as bait.” Luke’s ears were blessed by Reggie’s stammered protests as he tried to hack faster into the server room before he and Alex got caught.

“I’m not going to be anyone’s bait,” Reggie hissed, muttering under his breath as he urged his decoder to work faster. Luke couldn’t help but smirk when Reggie sqawaked in surprise signaling that the guards must’ve shown up to bust them. Then the sound of bodies dropping told Luke Bobby had taken care of the guards.    
  


“Alright guys get out of there,” Luke said, hoping they could still hear him.

“Uh… slight problem,” Alex said, “the upper levels have been locked down and we can’t leave through the roof.” An idea formed in Luke’s head and he shut down his little headquarters room, rushing to his car parked in the street.

“Guys we’re switching to plan D,” Luke said, slamming his car door and switching it into drive. “We’re going to run The Burn Scam.”

“How many plans do we have?” Reggie asked as he and Bobby ran for the elevator. “Is there like, a plan M?” Luke smirked as he pulled the car up to the Pearson building.

“Yeah, Reginald dies in plan M,” Luke said, watching the doors for his team.

“I like plan M,” Bobby said, sounding all too happy thinking about Alex dying during a heist. Luke just rolled his eyes and waited until he saw Reggie, Bobby, and Alex stumble out of the Pearson building, Alex disguised as an elderly man with a cane. Luke waited for the boys to slide into the car, Bobby and Reggie in the backseat and Alex in the passenger side. They slammed the doors shut and Luke pulled into the street, driving as fast as he could - without speeding - away from the building they just robbed.

* * *

“Come on man, it’s only taking you all night I thought you were the world’s best hacker,” Luke said, shivering as the cold night air bit at him. The four of them were standing in the middle of a public park waiting for Alex to send Dubenich the plans they stole. It was so early the sun had barely risen, just barely warming the sky above them.

“First of all; I  _ am _ the best hacker in the world, and second of all; I’d like to see you back hack your way into shitty public wifi signals in the middle of a goddamn park old man,” Alex said as his fingers flew across his computer screen. “Alright there you go, the designs are sent.” Alex informed them, shutting his laptop. Luke rubbed his hands together trying to conduct some heat to keep them warm.

“Alright, your money should be in your accounts later today,” Luke said, remembering what Dubenich said about him getting double the amount Alex, Bobby, and Reggie were getting. Reggie grinned, the smile stretching across his face.

“Anybody else realize how hard we rocked last night?” He asked as Luke started to walk away from them.

“Yeah well,” Bobby said with a shrug. “One show only, no encores.”

“I already forgot your names,” Alex said, chiming in as he bounced on his heels, obvious anxiety chomping at the bit. Reggie shrugged,

“You know it was kinda cool playing on the same side for once,” he admitted, looking pointedly at Luke who shook his head.

“No, we are not on the same side,” Luke said, denying the undertone of Reggie’s claim. “I am not a thief,” Luke repeated, though he was starting to have trouble believing it himself. Bobby scoffed and crossed his arms.

“Yeah well, you are now,” Bobby pointed out.

“Come on  _ Lucas _ tell the truth,” Alex said, leaning an arm off of Reggie’s shoulder. “Didn’t you have a little bit of fun playing the black king instead of the white knight?” Luke didn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer, instead he just shoved his hands into his pockets and walked away, knowing his silence was enough of an answer himself. When he got back to his apartment later that night he couldn’t help but feel like running the con just felt…  _ right _ . There was some part of him that couldn’t wait to do it again.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell at me on Tumblr: @Random-Nerd-3


End file.
